The UFC 131 Prelims on Spike TV on Saturday night pulled in a strong viewership for the basic cable network. The event averaged 1.6 million viewers over the course of the one-hour telecast.

Sam Stout knocked Yves Edwards out cold with a brutal right hand in the main fight on Spike, while Chris Weidman choked out Jesse Bongfeldt. Both were first-round finishes, making for a couple of exciting, fan friendly bouts.

The 1.6 million average viewership marks the highest average for the series on Spike TV since UFC 126 on Super Bowl weekend. The UFC 126 Prelims drew an average audience of 2.0 million viewers.

The series has done well for the network averaging 1.45 million viewers per episode over the course of 17 telecasts in just under two years.

Related News

While promoted as the biggest show of the year, the lackluster prelims for UFC 189 did an average of 847,000 viewers, which is at the average level for 2015, and well below the numbers that the preliread news >>

Is normal. The UFC 189 pay-per-view (PPV) event may return record numbers at the box office, but the "Mendes vs. McGregor" preliminary fights on July 11 in Las Vegas were nothing to write home about,read news >>

UFC on Fox 16 featuring a bantamweight title fight faces a nearly perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances in the war for TV viewers. After a wild week that saw four events take place in three diffread news >>

David Castillo breaks down the three things you need to know about an undercard that feels fitting as the appetizer to the Conor McGregor vs. Chad Mendes main course for UFC 189 in Vegas. Matt Brown read news >>

FOUR! That's four days until UFC 189: "Mendes vs. McGregor," which takes place inside MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 11, 2015. If I were to put a soundtrack to my excitement it read news >>

Middleweight Costas Philippou has been pulled from the UFC rankings. What could that possibly mean? Costas Philippou is coming off a tough loss to Gegard Mousasi at UFC Fight Night: Edgar vs. Faber iread news >>

Take a look at the fighters most notorious for pulling out of fights. Mixed Martial Arts is a sport often plagued with injuries. In a world where the top athletes sharpen and hone their craft with puread news >>

We are now just five days away from UFC 189: "Mendes vs. McGregor," which takes place inside MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 11, 2015. That means it's time to get down to the ittread news >>